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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24816142">i say i'll be fine (but i don't think that i will)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostsometime/pseuds/lostsometime'>lostsometime</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A Little Bit of Humor, Angst, Canon-typical Shadowgast, Family, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Torture, Minor Violence, POV Alternating, POV Caleb Widogast, Spoilers for Episode 97, aka the feelings are there but nobody's saying anything out loud, mostly - Freeform, mostly angst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 12:01:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,829</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24816142</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostsometime/pseuds/lostsometime</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Essek's treachery is discovered, and the Mighty Nein stage a daring rescue to break him out of prison.  That's a much longer story, that I didn't write.</p><p>This story is about what happens in the moments after.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Essek Thelyss &amp; Caleb Widogast, Essek Thelyss &amp; Verin Thelyss, The Mighty Nein &amp; Essek Thelyss</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>216</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s strange, Caleb thinks, half-hysterical, that they’re back again, fleeing through a sewer and running headlong into an armed and armored Krynn warrior.  This time, of course, the soldier is not a lone fugitive, but just one of the Krynn capital’s many guardians, and they were being pursued by at least another half-dozen before they thought to duck out of sight below street level.</p><p>This time, the drow fugitive halfway to bleeding out is on their side – Essek, still unconscious in Yasha’s arms – and the warrior looks perfectly fine.  He’s taller than most drow – still not quite as tall as Caleb and Fjord, who need to hunch a bit to fit down some of the smaller tunnels, but bigger and brawnier than most they’ve seen.  His hair is long, white, and intricately braided to keep it out of his way.  He is, probably, what Jester would call handsome, if she were in a lighter mood.  Caleb, of course, remembers their first encounter with one of the Krynn well, that night – Jester’s little smile as she piped up <em>I think we should let him go.  I think he’s handsome</em>.</p><p>He remembers, too, their first day in Rosohna, guided to the Dungeon of Penance to rescue Yeza – Jester had batted her eyes at Essek and chirped <em>I think you’re really cool and handsome, and I hope we can be friends.</em></p><p>This is just his life now, he supposes.  Plagued by handsome and incredibly dangerous drow.</p><p>(Essek, of course, is not dangerous now.  Essek is barely breathing, now.)</p><p>Caleb clenches his jaw and moves forward to speak.</p><p>“Move aside.  We don’t want to fight you, but we will if we must.  We are leaving this city.  If we have to kill you to do it, we will.”  He ignites one hand, just to show he means it. </p><p>The soldier’s eyes are flicking between the members of the Nein.  His gauntleted hand flexes around the hilt of his sword, but he does not move to draw it.  There is a moment’s tension as his eyes catch and hold on the broken body in Yasha’s arms.</p><p>“Is he alive?”  The man’s voice is rough, his Common accented only lightly.</p><p>Cautiously, Caleb begins to move as though to step around him, hoping to move past without combat.  They haven’t had a chance to rest since their last battle, and with Yasha encumbered as she is, he doesn’t love their odds if this gets violent.  “…yes,” he murmurs, cautiously.  “And he’s going to stay that way.”</p><p>The soldier’s expression twitches, briefly.  He’s fighting some internal battle, Caleb thinks, something not apparent to the Nein.  Finally, the man draws to the side, giving them space, and takes his hand from his blade.  He might still attack one of them as they move past him, Caleb fears.  Essek would surely not survive even a single blow.  But the man growls, “Go,” and the Nein begin to file slowly, cautiously past him.</p><p>“Get out of here, <em>go!</em>  And – don’t come back.  If I see you – <em>any </em>of you – again, I – I <em>will </em>kill you.”</p><p>Beau looks like she wants to say something, probably something along the lines of “You and what army?” but she recognizes how precarious their situation is and admirably stills her tongue.</p><p>Once they’re past, the Nein are able to pick up speed again.  They clatter along for a few steps at a run, when they hear the man call out “Wait!”  Caleb gets out his sulfur, preparing to cast a wall of flame behind them as they run, but the man hasn’t turned around – he speaks, instead, over his shoulder, his back entirely unprotected.</p><p>“If he – <em>when</em>, when he wakes up, tell him….” He swallows hard, sounds like he’s fighting to get the words out.  “…tell him, Verin said goodbye.”</p><p>Caleb nods, realizes the man probably can’t see him, and says “…we will.”  He exchanges a glance with the rest of the Nein.  A question hovers in their midst, but none of them asks it.  Fjord gestures them to move on, says “Let’s go,” and waits until Caleb takes off down the tunnel before he falls in to take the rear.  <em>Squishy wizards in the middle</em>, Caleb thinks, in Jester’s voice.</p><p>Their escape is a solemn thing, though they don’t find themselves encountering any further soldiers as they exit the edge of the city.  Only when they feel they’ve put a significant amount of distance between them and any pursuing party do they feel they can stop long enough for Caleb to take the time to draw out a teleportation circle to take them safely to Nicodranas.  Jester, shockingly, remembers to <em>Send </em>a message to Yussa that they’re coming.</p><p>Beau watches as Fjord counts out Jester’s words for her.  Once the spell is through, she saunters over, fake-casual. </p><p>“Hey, Jes…”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“…you think you got a good enough look at that guy back there to cast <em>Sending </em>to him?”</p><p>The cat-in-the-cream smile that curls across Jester’s face answers the question even before her words do, but she taps her fingers together with faux-innocence and responds, “You know what, Beau?  I really think I did.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>((yeah the nein definitely think verin is like his ex or something. it's gonna take them a while to figure this out.))</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>WELP I GUESS I WROTE ANOTHER CHAPTER OF THIS???  This is almost entirely navel-gazing nonsense, because Verin is melodramatic as hell.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Verin finds it difficult to trance that night.</p><p>He keeps playing his encounter in the sewers over in his head – did he make the right choice?  Did he <em>have </em>a choice?  He’s always felt such a clear call to duty, and now the things he’s meant to show loyalty to are at odds and the roads that were smooth and clear before him have gotten all muddled up.  What does he owe to his country?  What does he owe to his Den?  If he lets the group of foreigners take his brother away, he is disobeying the Bright Queen, whose will he has sworn to uphold and protect.  If he doesn’t… his brother dies.</p><p>Isn’t family the highest duty of all?</p><p>He can’t help but feel slightly resentful of Essek, for making this decision necessary.  Doing the right thing wasn’t supposed to be so <em>complicated</em>. </p><p>He eventually resigns himself to the fact that sinking into meditation while his thoughts remain this agitated is impossible, and resolves that he’ll just <em>lie in bed </em>until he actually falls <em>asleep</em>.</p><p>He doesn’t do that, either.  He lies in bed and he stares at the door and he feels more awake than ever.</p><p>It doesn’t help that he’s staying with his mother while he’s in the city, in his childhood home, and is sleeping in the room that used to be his.  He can’t stop thinking about how the door that was Essek’s is right across the hall.  He can’t stop remembering when he was small, and had a nightmare, and was frightened of it and even more frightened to wake his mother, and Essek would let him come sleep in his room for the night.  He must have been… five?  Six?  The edges of the memory have been softened by time, and he <em>knows </em>nostalgia is a liar, but his heart aches anyway.</p><p>He remembers talking to his brother about who they might have been, back when they both still thought it possible that they were returning souls.  Essek had been so eager to start remembering things – by that time he’d begun his study of the arcane, and everyone was convinced the speed with which he picked it up was a sign of his being the next life of some great archmage.  Verin had been afraid of it – <em>what if, when you start remembering things, you’re not you anymore?  What if you don’t want to be my brother anymore?</em></p><p>Essek had laughed at him, and told him <em>that’s not how it works</em>.  Then he tried to explain the mechanics of anamnesis to him, which wasn’t what Verin wanted at all.  What he’d <em>wanted </em>was for Essek to say “<em>I would </em>never <em>want to stop being your brother.”</em></p><p>After a while, he stopped going to Essek for reassurance when he was scared.  It wasn’t long after that that he decided he was sick of being scared altogether and started his weapons training.</p><p>Verin looks back on his past self with something like pity – child Verin had really thought he could stop himself from being afraid by being good with a sword.  Child Verin had never imagined something like a group of strangers in a sewer with fire in their eyes, and being equally terrified of what might happen if he draws his sword on them as he is of what might happen if he doesn’t.</p><p>He huffs and rolls over so he doesn’t have to look at the door anymore.  Then he sighs and turns back, because he’s too much a soldier, now, to sleep with his back to the door, even in his mother’s house.</p><p>There’s a reason, Verin tries to remind himself, that the gentle memories that are assailing him all come from the earliest years of his childhood.  He’s not thinking about any more recent fond memories of his brother because he doesn’t <em>have </em>any.  His brother stopped being someone he could talk to in early adolescence, and he’d never seemed to mind it when Verin slipped out of his life entirely.  It started when Essek was about fifteen, he thinks.  When it became clear that there was no spectacular other life for him to remember.  When he realized that if he wanted to be a great archmage, he was going to have to do it entirely by himself.</p><p>There was maybe one spot of – commiseration, maybe, if not camaraderie, a few years later when it became clear that Verin, too, was a new soul.  But it had never bothered him quite as deeply as it bothered Essek, and by then the pulling-away was normal and comfortable, expected in a way neither of them cared enough to challenge.</p><p>Maybe he should have, Verin thinks.  Maybe if he’d been paying attention he would have seen how far his brother’s ambitions truly reached, how far he was willing to go to reach his goals.  Maybe he could have said something, or done something, given him somewhere to turn that wasn’t the <em>fucking </em>Empire.  Maybe they wouldn’t be in this mess, if only Verin had been a better brother.</p><p>
  <em>Or maybe we would, because he’s an ass and he would’ve done it either way.</em>
</p><p>He orders himself very sternly to <em>stop blaming himself for things he obviously can’t control</em>.  He orders himself, and he pretends very hard that his eyes are only stinging because he’s so tired.</p><p>What’s done is done.  Essek made his choices, and Verin made his own, and now it’s <em>over</em>. </p><p>He finally drifts into a restless doze.</p><hr/><p>The next day, he tries to casually suggest to his mother that he should return to Bazzoxan sooner rather than later.  He’d been given two weeks’ leave, but that was when they thought he’d need to be comforting the Umavi in the wake of her eldest son’s execution.  In the absence of such a need, he feels a bit superfluous.  He doesn’t tell her this.  He tells her instead how he hates to leave his men leaderless in such a dangerous place as Bazzoxan.  His mother’s lips tighten into a thin line, but eventually she nods and pats his arm a bit absently.</p><p>“Of course.  Yes.  You’re such a fine soldier, Verin.  So much like your father.”</p><p>It’s more praise than he’s gotten from his mother in years, and he is suddenly piercingly aware that she is now hanging all her hopes for the advancement of her children and her Den on him.  All her hopes that she may be able to put this shame behind her at some point within her current lifetime.</p><p>He is even gladder, now, to be leaving the following day.</p><p>Of course, before he can get to the following day, he needs to get through that night.  And that means one more dinner with the Umavi, sitting quietly at her table while her servants wait on him and trying not to look at the places where his father and his brother used to sit.</p><p>He knows he used to be fine with being waited on; they always had servants in the house growing up.  He doesn’t know when that changed, only that he feels a creeping unease at the deferential treatment and desperately misses the noisy, crowded mess hall where he takes his meals in Bazzoxan.</p><p>He excuses himself as early as possible and heads to bed – resigned to another night of staring at the door, sure that the image of his brother as a child is going to hover in his mind’s eye, making it impossible to sleep.  Instead, he thinks of his brother as he looked the last time Verin was in Rosohna for a feast day.  The thin-lipped smile he gave the many visiting dignitaries he spent the night talking to.  Verin recognizes it now, the mask Essek wore that he lifted wholesale from the Umavi’s face.  He wonders how he never saw it before.  Maybe his mother had never looked at him that way before.  Maybe he just missed it.</p><p>“How did you do it?” Verin murmurs to the memory of his brother, “how did you <em>breathe </em>with all her expectations on you all the time?”  His imaginary Essek has no wisdom to impart.  He just smiles and smiles their mother’s thin-lipped smile, and says nothing.</p><p>Verin doesn’t even realize he’s fallen asleep this time.  Not until he’s woken at the sound of enthusiastic yelling, and is halfway to grabbing his sword before he realizes the yelling is happening in his mind.</p><p>“HEEEEEY!  JUST WANTED TO TELL YOU ESSEK WOKE UP FOR A LITTLE BIT, WE DIDN'T GET A CHANCE TO GIVE HIM YOUR MESSAGE YET, BUT ---”</p><p>Verin has received <em>Sendings</em> before – concise deliveries of orders and troop movements, or requests for aid from nearby outposts.  He knows he can reply in kind, that this voice is probably <em>waiting </em>for an answer.</p><p>Trying to formulate a response, Verin opens his mouth - and realizes he has <em>no idea what to say</em>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Catching up with the other Thelyss brother...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Essek is, to all appearances, asleep when Caleb sits down in a chair by his bedside.  It has been several days since their escape, now, and he’s been sleeping a lot.  A night’s rest had restored the clerics’ magic enough to heal all but his most grievous injuries, and another day or two of healing was enough to wipe away the most obvious physical effects of his imprisonment.  The bone-deep exhaustion born from weeks of ill-treatment and near-starvation, on the other hand, has been much slower to fade.  And spending time with the Mighty Nein is many things, but “restful” has never been one of them; a handful of minutes in their company is usually enough to have Essek’s eyelids hanging heavy and he has twice nodded off mid-conversation.</p><p>He has been tucked into a spare room at the Lavish Chateau, and Jester has been suppressing her concern by determinedly piling his bed with as many extra blankets and pillows as she possibly can.  Caleb thinks the vast swathes of creamy-white linen just make him look smaller and oddly out of place.  His hands – thin and dark and still, curled half-open on the coverlet – make something ache gently in Caleb’s chest, and he pulls his focus away.</p><p>After a few minutes studying the steady rise and fall of his chest, Caleb says conversationally, “I know you are awake.  You can open your eyes.  We are alone, and I will not ask you any questions.”</p><p><em>Ah</em>, Essek thinks.  <em>That’s how it is, then.</em></p><p>And indeed, though he truly does feel more tired than he ever has before, Essek has found himself feigning sleep more than once.  At first it was just because being awake <em>hurt</em>, and when he found himself surfacing from unconsciousness, he immediately wanted to return to a place the pain couldn’t reach him.  Gradually, though, he has realized that he is putting off rejoining the waking world for other, more cowardly reasons.</p><p>He simply doesn’t know what to do with himself, what to say to the friends who sacrificed so much to save him.  He thinks of what they’ve given up: the favor of a queen, the freedom to walk safely and openly across a full half of the continent, the respect and gratitude of an entire nation, a place to go when they are in danger, a safe harbor to return to that he knows some of them had begun to think of as a home.  That he knows has been the <em>first </em>home some of them have ever had. </p><p>And what did they get in return?  Just him.  And not as the prodigal scion of the powerful and influential Den Thelyss, not as the well-respected Shadowhand of the queen, not a version of him that had anything of value to offer.  He knows he is a wizard of some considerable strength, but he doesn’t delude himself into thinking there’s anything he can give them that Caleb can’t – or at least, won’t be able to, with time.  He realized early on in their lessons that Caleb has more raw talent with the arcane than he does, and he’s well on his way to outstripping him in skill and power, if he hasn’t already. </p><p>He is, objectively, worthless.</p><p>And the worst part of it is that he <em>knows</em> that they don’t care.  He knows if he brought up repayment, they would stop him before he could finish the first sentence.  He knows their relationship is not measured in favors anymore, and hasn’t been for quite some time.  He knows this, but he cannot bear to look at it head-on.  He can’t bear to face them, their obvious concern, their care, for more than a few moments at a time.  And he knows that they have questions – has heard them softly discussing what to ask him, sometimes, in the doorway or the hall. </p><p>Jester has been trying to ask him about Verin for <em>days, </em>now.  Just the thought of trying to process his brother’s goodbye, let alone to try explaining it to his friends, is so overwhelming that he feels exhausted in truth, desperate to sink back into sleep.</p><p>He knows he can’t keep putting it off forever, though.  And Caleb – Caleb knows him better than anyone.  He’s not surprised that Caleb can see through him.  (He suspects that Caduceus knows, too, but has chosen not to say anything.  Another gift he cannot imagine how to return.)</p><p>Essek opens his eyes just a crack and glances over at Caleb.  “What gave me away?”</p><p>Caleb grins.  “You did, just now.”</p><p>Essek feels a rueful smile spread across his face and gives up on subterfuge entirely.</p><p>“Clever.”  Resigned to wakefulness, he begins trying to lever himself up onto one elbow so he doesn’t have to face an entire conversation while supine in bed.  It doesn’t work very well; he’s still terribly weak from his captivity, so much so that even supporting his own slight weight is something of a challenge.  Caleb clicks his tongue in gentle disapproval and moves to begin piling up some of Jester’s gratuitous pillows against the headboard and to help him sit mostly upright.  It’s the closest he’s gotten to sitting up like a functional person in days, and he’s so thankful for it he almost forgets to be embarrassed.  Caleb generously pretends not to notice as he sits back in his chair.</p><p>“I have – “ Caleb starts, a bit suddenly, then seems to think better of it and starts again.  “I know that you are hiding from them.  From us.  And I thought it might interest you to talk to someone who has been where you are.  And I, I have been where you are.  Not, ah…” he gestures vaguely to their surroundings, “not feigning sleep in Jester’s mother’s house, obviously.  But, ah – hiding.  From the Mighty Nein.”</p><p>It makes Essek uncomfortable to hear what he’s doing called “hiding,” but he lets it stand uncontested.  Caleb’s not wrong, after all.  He catches himself sneaking glances at Caleb’s face, trying to read him, to figure out where this conversation is going to take him next.</p><p>“There are two moments, always two moments, that you have to deal with when you are with the Mighty Nein,” Caleb continues.  “The oh-shit moments.”</p><p>Caleb rarely talks so much at once, and Essek is frankly relieved that his input doesn’t seem to be required, so he listens.</p><p>“The first,” he says, “is when you realize how much you care about them.  ‘Oh shit,’ you think, ‘I love these people.’”  There’s a faint, distant smile playing on his face, one Essek has only seen a few times.  Usually when Caleb is looking at his friends, he realizes.  “It can happen piecemeal, one at a time, that’s how it was for me – six different ‘oh shit’ moments.  A lot of shit!  But it can also happen, I think, all at once.”</p><p>He glances over at Essek from just the corner of his eyes.  “I get the feeling it was one big, all-at-once kind of shit for you.”  Essek snorts, but even the barest beginning of a laugh sets him coughing in a way that makes him want to pass out or throw up, and Caleb immediately turns in his chair to brace him. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” he says, once Essek is settled back into the cushions propped up on the headboard.  “I didn’t mean to—”   Essek just waves a hand at him, at once dismissing the apology and inviting him to continue.</p><p>“You are sure?  We can have this conversation another time, if you would rather…”</p><p><em>“Caleb,” </em>Essek rasps, “It’s <em>fine.</em>  Continue.  Please.”</p><p>“All right, all right, okay!  What was I saying – all at once, that’s right, one big collective 'oh shit, I care about them,' <em>ja</em>?  So: the second oh-shit moment – this is when you realize how much <em>they </em>care about <em>you</em>.  <em>That </em>is where you are right now, and it is… <em>difficult</em>, I know.  It takes some adjusting. Especially when you are – when you are like you have been.”</p><p>“A bad person?”</p><p>“I was going to say <em>alone</em>.  Alone for a, a very long time.”</p><p>Essek hums thoughtfully, his gaze roving across the room somewhat aimlessly.  He doesn’t want to be looking at Caleb for this next part.  He would rather if Caleb was also not looking at him.</p><p>“I…” he begins, and tells himself the tightness in his throat is just from the coughing earlier, “I thought I knew.  On the ship.  I – I thought <em>that </em>was the moment.  And I… dealt with it.  I <em>adjusted</em>, as you say.  But this?”  He swallows hard, searching for the right words.  “It is so much more.”</p><p>Essek chances a look in Caleb’s direction and catches him in the midst of another of those soft smiles, this one aimed at him.  <em>A smile for looking at his friends</em>, Essek thinks, and has to close his eyes against a sudden burning.</p>
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